Making City Streets Safer: A Design Solution

As an Upper West Side resident living near the 96th Street and Broadway intersection alluded to in the article, I am sadly aware of the spate of fatal accidents in that area this year. I also know about the increased police presence to address the issue.

Last month I watched a patrolman give someone a ticket for walking out between two parked cars rather than going to the crosswalk about 15 feet away. I felt bad for the cop and for the pedestrian, too. They were both caught up in a fairly typical bureaucratic response to a problem: decide who is at fault and punish. But the solution is not in law enforcement.

This intersection is bustling with activity. I counted six different crosswalks, 10 lanes of cars, additional lines of parked cars, buses, bikes, cabs, strollers, 11 different traffic light clusters and 12 pedestrian signals. It is a mash-up of local road, travel hub, urban highway and sliding puzzle. The combustion has only been complicated by the expansion of the subway station right there in the midst of it all.

Vigilant cops will not solve the problem. As Ms. Gallagher suggests, this is a design problem, a question of patterns and behaviors, and it has a design solution. It might make sense to explore painting the lanes in different colors to clarify pathways and directions or the use of a mechanical traffic cop. Or perhaps it is time to redesign those century-old three-color traffic lights to include a countdown clock for drivers. There are many possibilities if we think beyond just handing out more tickets.

ALAN ROBBINS New York, Feb. 28, 2014

The writer is a professor of design at Kean University.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Making City Streets Safer: A Design Solution. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe